Turned into Penance

After the death of her mother, her brother Marius was kicked out of the family's home. He eventually returned and invited Monet to join him in conquering another dimension, but she scornfully rejected him. Fed up with her high-handed attitude towards him, Marius magically trapped her in the form of a mute creature with razor-sharp, diamond-hard red skin, Penance.[citation needed]

Finding their sister missing, Claudette and Nicole thought Monet was dead and that Marius was to blame. Claudette opened a dimensional portal to sentence Marius too and he called after Penance to join him, saying that only he could cure her. She followed after him and became his slave and "dinner". Nicole and Claudette, knowing Monet was their parents' favorite, decide to merge into one body with the appearance of Monet. Everything about the twins' version of Monet was like normal, including her physical body, personality, and powers. Everything would have been perfect, if it weren't for Claudette's autism. Since both the twins' personalities were combined, Claudette's autism would sometimes take effect, leaving "Monet" in catatonic stupors.[citation needed]

Shortly after the formation of the mutant teen team Generation X, Penance is dropped onto the front lawn of the Massachusetts Academy by Gateway[1], who reveals her identity as Penance. She is brought inside by headmaster Banshee, who discovers her powers as he cuts his hands by trying to pick her up. As Penance cannot speak, understand English (apparently), and with an immunity to telepath, Banshee places her in the infirmary as Banshee and Emma Frost attempt to discover her identity. Teen member M, her relation to Penance unknown, tells the adults that Penance was perhaps a prisoner of Emplate, a parasitic mutant who fed upon other mutants that the group had encountered previously.[citation needed]

While all four St. Croix children possessed some form of power, Monet had a plethora of her own, including self propelled flight, superhuman strength and reflexes, and telepathy to name a few. In addition to her powers she tended to have a sizable attitude and a large chip on her shoulder, to the say the least. She quickly clashed with many of her Generation X teammates and often earned their irritation with her condescending attitude and occasional arrogance.[citation needed]

Her rival, Jubilee, often teased that her only power was simply to be "perfect". In truth, Monet had survived an incredible series of ordeals, including enslavement at the hands of her brother Emplate. As a result, M became self-reliant and outwardly harsh and defensive to make up for her fear and insecurity. The only person she allowed to see her vulnerabilities was Everett Thomas, with whom she started a brief romantic relationship.[citation needed]

As the team leaves, Penance awakens with one thought on her mind: survival. Tearing apart her (in her mind) cell and escaping, she was free. Hearing the alarms of a breach, the team rushes to the infirmary and stares at the extensive damage she caused during her escape. The team splits up to find her before she can cause further damage to the Academy. Team member Chamber, feeling a kindred spirit due to his own mutilated body, leaves the group to search for her alone. Feeling that another deformed soul would seek him out, he waited for her arrival. After Penance fights her way past the rest of the team (Husk, Synch, Jubilee, and M), she approaches Chamber, who talks telepathically to her in an attempt to convince her that he knows how she feels and eventually calms the girl down into staying with the team.[citation needed]

During her stay at the Academy, she would rarely interact with her peers, due to her animalistic nature and fright of being captured again. Fortunately, perhaps due to her time with the feral mutant Wolverine, Jubilee becomes a friend to her. Trusting her friends more, Penance begins to go on missions with the others, and in in Generation X #8. In a subsequent mission, presumably to cover up their relation, Emplate refers to her as "Yvette" and the others grow somewhat weary of Penance.[citation needed]

Freed from Penance body

Finally, M reveals that she is a combination of two sisters, and tell the others the truth about Penance, and that they feel horrible about impersonating their sister. To "make things right", the twins, now split apart, merge once more into the form of Monet and swap places with Penance, freeing the real Monet at last, with the merged twins taking over as Penance's body.[citation needed]

Monet, free at last, continues to operate under the twins' codename of M, while the twins retain the identity of Penance. Both remain a part of the Generation X team, while still trying to cure the still mute Penance. Later, an explosion frees the twins from the Penance body, but the body would continue to function as though a mind is still inside it.[citation needed]

M was one of the most devastated of the Generation X team members when Synch sacrificed his own life to stop an exploding bomb that had been placed at the academy by Emma Frost's cruel sister, Adrienne. Soon after Synch's death, the team rapidly began to fall apart, even as Monet began to open up by acting a little more human and vulnerable around her fellow teammates. Following the bomb incident, Monet began to observe Emma Frost acting strangely villainous causing the entire team to question her leadership abilities, particularly when combined with Banshee's relapse into alcoholism following the death of his lover, Moira MacTaggert.[citation needed]

X-Corps

The team soon parted ways, however, M temporarily joined Banshee's militant X-Corps with Husk and Jubilee in order to keep an eye on the devastated Irish mutant. However, the X-Corps were soon destroyed by Mystique, and M joined the X-Corporation's European branch located in Paris. Monet helped the X-Men battle Black Tom Cassidy and the Juggernaut before returning to her duties at X-Corporation Europe.[citation needed]

X-Factor Investigations

Following the events of M-Day, Monet then opted to join the motley crew of X-Factor Investigations, a private detective agency run by Multiple Man. Monet then later on completed her first mission on the team; by telepathically tricking the famous actor, Jack Vaughn, to confess to the murder of Gloria Santiago's sister.[citation needed]

Afterwards, Monet broke down and cried in Jamie's arms after empathizing with the victim, but quickly threatened to break him in half if he ever revealed her moment of "weakness". A comment made to Rictor implied that she no longer wished to go by the name "M".[citation needed]

However, in a therapy session with Doc Samson, Monet stated that she hid behind the "M" persona so that others would not see how vulnerable she had become due to the lengthy amount of time she was held captive by her brother.[citation needed]Cartier St. Croix was kidnapped by Karl Mordo, who suffers from cancer. Mordo used Cartier to catch Monet, cause he needed her life energy to heal himself. Monet tricked Mordo by using her telepathy, and he went away.[citation needed]

X-Men

After the hell on earth incident that ended X-factor, Monet found herself at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning as a sort of retreat from the life of superheroing and to wind down from her recent death & rebirth. Of which in said respect formed a kinship with the also recently brain deceased and now depowered Karima, During a quick and quiet little jog in the woods Both her and Karima were attacked by a whole new Deathstrike/Ana Cortes backed by her hired guns. Who in an impressive telekinetic display, single handedly averted their attackers.[2]

After getting a better look at and into the mind of their assailant, Deathstrike had to plan withdrawal in the event that her new form still wasn't ready for combat. Monet, initially tempted to follow in pursuit; had her attentions turned towards a wounded Karima, injured during the firefight needing M to rush her back to the school where she officially joined with storms new X-Men team.

While on a scouting job in Budapest; where the first Arkea piece latched onto baby Shogo, to find their adversary after an alarm went off alerting Rachel and the others to the reactivation of their believed to be dead enemy. Having been booted back up by a new Sisterhood of Mutants, which initially had been organized under Yuriko/Ana but then seceded leadership under the parasitic disease in exchange for upgrades.

Monet tore out of Budapest, Hungary at mach 3 flight in order to reach Dubai, UAE where the new Body Shop and lair of the sisterhood was; only to have a brief scuffle with and eventually be subdued by a now repowered Enchantress. Deathstrike's alien possessed Tech assistant had recently sent out a type of distress beacon that reactivated numerous non-functioning Sentinels to do battle with the X-Men.[3]

Powers

Monet St. Croix is a mutant with a wide variety of mutant powers at superhuman levels and representing a near-perfect human being.

Superhuman Strength Monet possesses superhuman strength sufficient enough to lift around 75 tons. She has been shown to be able to massively beat up even Asgardians.[citation needed]

Superhuman Speed: Monet possesses superhuman speed, allowing her to move and accelerate faster than any normal human. She has been shown to be able to fly at Mach 3 without straining herself, and can move on the ground fast enough to catch a bullet and get Jubilee to safety before a gunman can react.

Superhuman Stamina: Her physical stamina is such that she possesses greater physical stamina than any ordinary human and can exert herself at her peak for up to 24 hours before the build up of fatigue toxins in her blood began to impair her.

Nigh-Invulnerability: Monet is virtually invulnerable to injury. She is so durable she can withstand blows from beings such as World War Hulk mostly unharmed.[4]

Superhuman Agility: Her agility, balance and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels beyond the natural physical limits and capabilities of the finest human specimen.

Superhuman Reflexes: Her reflexes are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of the finest human athlete. She's become rather good at being able to catch bullets, even when fired from a few feet away.

Accelerated Healing Factor: Despite her incredible resistance to harm, it is possible for Monet to be injured. However, M possesses a regenerative quality allowing her to heal and quickly recover from near-fatal wounds. The effect also has the added benefit of making her more resistant to toxins, disease and possibly the aging process.

Enhanced Senses: M's senses are so advanced that she possesses telescopic and night visions, as well as superhuman hearing.

Flight: Monet is able to fly through the air through sheer act of will. While her top speed is not currently known, it is at least 500 MPH. In X-Factor 04, she caught up with--and leisurely maintained the speed of--a passenger plane carrying a suspect while inducing a psychic illusion. Recently she reached flight speeds up to mach 3 as she flew all the way from Hungary to the UAE.[3]

Telepathy: Ability to read minds and project her thoughts into the minds of others and defensively mask her mind against telepathic intrusion. Monet has also been shown to be capable of other basic telepathic abilities such as illusion casting and memory wiping.

Abilities

M is formidable in hand-to-hand combat and her intelligence is beyond genius level. She has perfect memory and superhuman intuitive skills. M also is Multilingual, capable of speaking a variety of different languages. Capable of using computers and electronic devices with ease.